George Harrison Said the Press Wouldn’t Get ‘Much Mileage’ out of a Rumor He and Paul McCartney Were Feuding
George Harrison and Paul McCartney didn’t always have the best relationship, but they were never feuding with each other, as the press often claimed. George didn’t like the rumors in the newspapers.
George Harrison and Paul McCartney didn’t have the best relationship in The Beatles, but they weren’t feuding
When they were boys, George and Paul were tight. Paul was the reason George joined The Beatles. He told John Lennon that George was a great guitarist. In 1963, when the band started to become famous, the bandmates protected each other.
However, their friendship started cracking when George began writing songs. Paul, John, and their producer George Martin acted condescendingly when he came forward with them. Then, George started feeling like a junior member, and Paul started treating him like a glorified session man. Paul told George to play what he wanted, and George could rarely give his input.
Many people have said that George and Paul were the least compatible musically.
“Yeah, well now we don’t have any problems whatsoever as far as being people is concerned, and it’s quite nice to see him,” George told Rolling Stone in 1979. “But I don’t know about being in a band with him, how that would work out. It’s like, we all have our own tunes to do.
“And my problem was that it would always be very difficult to get in on the act, because Paul was very pushy in that respect. When he succumbed to playing on one of your tunes, he’d always do good. But you’d have to do fifty-nine of Paul’s songs before he’d even listen to one of yours.
“So, in that respect, it would be very difficult to ever play with him. But, you know, we’re cool as far as being pals goes.”
That’s not what the press wrote at the time.
George said the press wouldn’t get ‘much mileage’ out of a rumor he and Paul were feuding
On Aspel & Co., George set the record straight about his relationship with Paul and explained they weren’t feuding as the press claimed. George said, “For about 10 years, I didn’t really know Paul and never really saw much of him through the last 10 or 12 years. But more recently, we’ve been hanging out and getting to know each other, going for dinner, and meeting, and having a laugh.
“It’s absolutely not true what they said in The News of the World last Sunday,” George explained. He was in San Remo the day before Paul. He got a phone call from the Daily Mail and pretended he was somebody else. The person said there was someone downstairs trying to get this rumor started about him and Paul. So, George told the journalist that he and Paul weren’t together because they didn’t know the other was going to San Remo.
“It’s definitely just one of those things that these people sit around and think, ‘Let’s have a fight between George and Paul now.’
“Actually, I love Paul, he’s my mate, and it doesn’t matter what they say in the papers, they’re not gonna get much mileage out of that one.”
People thought The Beatles were going to appear on ‘Cloud Nine’
In 1987, George talked to Creem Magazine about his new album, Cloud Nine. Creem asked, “How come we heard Paul McCartney and Julian Lennon were also going to be on this album?”
The remaining Beatles, and Julian, all happened to be in separate recording studios when George made Cloud Nine. So, naturally, everyone thought all of them were going to appear.
George said, “You know what was happening? Ringo made an album, or was making an album, Paul was going in the studio and started making an album, but then he decided he didn’t want to do it and I think that was going around, saying that we were all making an album.
“People thought that it meant we were all making an album together, but we were all making separate ones, although Ringo did play on mine.”
People also thought they’d gotten together to film George’s music video for “When We Was Fab,” but that was false too.
George and Paul were never feuding with each other, though. They just fell out of touch following their drama in The Beatles. However, when they started hanging out again, they found that they were better as friends than bandmates.
